They are not better and not suited for the same job as hubble. The quality of the instruments is way inferior (perhaps even the mirrors has inferior polishing quality given that you don't need so much quality when looking at a turbulent atmosphere), which weighs in with most of the costs, but is suited for more luminous and nearby light sources, so, they are going to be used for wide angle surveys.
I think that a better comparison is some sort of improvised complement for WISE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide-field_Infrared_Survey_Explorer 2012/6/4 Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> > Seriously: > > > http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/06/hey-brother-can-you-spare-a-hubble-dod-sure-have-two/258061/ > > Quoting the Washington Post: > > "The U.S. government's secret space program has decided to give NASA two > telescopes as big as, and even more powerful than, the Hubble Space > Telescope. Designed for surveillance, the telescopes from the National > Reconnaissance Office were no longer needed for spy missions and can now be > used to study the heavens." > > > This is what I described here. The spy sats are better than Hubble. > > As I said, when Hubble was being constructed, the spooks offered technical > assistance which was largely ignored. That is probably why the lens came > out wrong. > > - Jed > > -- Daniel Rocha - RJ [email protected]
